bird set free
by racketeering
Summary: she had a voice, but she could not speak. ban/elaine. au.


**i hope u guys realize that my drafts are all unfinished and my writing is htgyhkjn rn ? so yes im v sorry this is trash im trash trash collection is monday leave me and this out on the curb by then k thx**

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She couldn't recall when he stopped being her brother.

What she could recall came in fragments – bits and pieces of a fractured puzzle that would return to her slowly, the hollow looks, the empty stares, the day he came home with the light drained from his eyes.

The quiet sound of him sobbing keeps her up at night – it plagues her, because in her mind, she wants to _fix_ it, but her heart knows that if she enters to console him, he'll shut her away just like he always had, over and over like a steel wired trap door. { _Get out, Elaine.}_

Her mind always returns to the last time she remembered being happy –to her, Helbram, and King, keeping their balance on the curb of the playground while laughing raucously.

Those were all scenes from long ago, before Helbram disappeared, taking King with him, and leaving Elaine behind like the branches on a tree in the fall. Before King came back one night, eyes gaunt and voice empty. He claimed to have returned that night, exactly three years after disappearing, but Elaine knew that somewhere in that period of time – he had lost himself.

"Do you want something to eat?" She asked him one morning, dipping her head into his room without knocking (she was just surprised that for once it wasn't unlocked). He jumped up like she had caught him doing something duplicity.

"N…no." he whispered shakily, voice raspy like he had caught a common cold. His room smelt like worn laundry detergent and she wondered when it was the last he actually went outside.

Biting her lip and taking a brave step forward, she dared to do something she had been waiting almost an entire year to do.

"You don't have to shut me out," she told him, burying her hands into her jacket pockets and swallowing the lump in her throat begrudgingly. "Please….I….I want my brother…back."

His head lifted up off of his desk, and it was clear by the ruffle at the top that he had slept there. Those grim eyes traced her form gently, revealing no hand and consistently holding up the guard she so desperately wished to defeat.

"Give up," he said to her, voice coming out in a low hiss as her face fell. "Just give it up already, Elaine."

Her lip started wobbling so hard she had to bite it for restraint. She nodded shakily, refusing to break down in front of him – tears would be strictly held in the confines of her room, where she was allowed to break down and scream for her lost childhood, and for her best friend who was now a complete stranger.

.

.

Elaine learned from the start that people aren't constant – they come and go like seasons, leaves fall, flowers thrive, and people hurt you more than you could have ever comprehended. That's just the way the world was.

.

.

"Listen, I just-" Elaine felt herself get cut off and she sighed abruptly. Her boss was _not_ keen on the fact that she wasn't getting along with one of her coworkers. It wasn't _her_ fault that moron didn't know how to properly write an article – honestly, it was a miracle handed down from god himself that that girl actually managed to snag a job with her company.

"I just don't understand why you refuse to work with anybody but yourself." Her boss spoke accusingly, and Elaine wasn't about to deny it.

"People are unreliable." She strained, not bothering to hide the bitter venom from escaping her tone.

"You'd better get out of that mindset _real_ quick." Her employer demanded, "or you won't have anyone to catch you when you fall."

"Sure." Elaine gritted her teeth and accepted. The phone made a shrill beeping noise, informing her that she had just been hung up on.

She shoved her phone in her purse with an unbridled animosity and bit her cheek until it bled.

What was the point of relying on people, when they'd only stab you in the back, in the end?

.

.

.

She realized then that she hadn't accepted a phone call from her mother in a whole year. It had been over 365 days since she'd abandoned her household and ran away from her problems. And she'd survived.

The phone rang for the third time and she found herself conflicted. She didn't want to answer – but something must have happened for it to be this urgent. They hadn't even called this many times on the day she first left.

Her hand ghosted the shell of her phone, anxious to receive whatever message her mother was so desperately trying to convey.

Her curiousity had her by the neck by the time she actually answered (fifth call) and her voice was as wavering as the surface of the sea itself.

"Hello?" She asked, holding the phone tight to the side of her face, like the response would be no more than a whisper.

" _Elaine_ ," her mother's voice gasped, somewhere between a sob and a breath.

"What's wrong?" Elaine asked, curling herself up on her burgundy couch and listening flippantly to the sound of the falling rain outside, intercepting the silence that her mother had offered her.

"He's gone," she whispered, and Elaine felt her world fall apart, for the first time since she'd left home for good.

" _What_." She spoke, voice shaking like a fault line, " _What are you talking about?_ "

"Harlequin," her mother repeated, using her brother's rare first name as a curse rather than a blessing. "He left again. He's gone, Elaine, we….we don't think he's coming back."

Silence, save for the raindrops hitting her window, o _ne, two, three, one two, three…_

"Elaine?" Her mother asked, but she had already hung up.

Hand clasped over her mouth, she stared at the window, searching for a constant, where was her polaris? Why couldn't she have a north star to guide her home?

Her tears fell to the beat of the falling rain, she promised herself she'd never cry over him again, but it turns out promises are better left unsaid.

.

.

.

"You need a sip, kid?"

Her eyes lazily darted upward, vision stained with rainwater and face blotched with the ghost of a river of tears. She surely looked a mess – as decimated as a town ravaged by storm, and yet this man saw it fit to offer her a sip of alcohol, and demean her by titling her as a child.

She didn't bother stifling him with correction, but instead yanked the slick rain-doused bottle out of his rough, calloused hands and downed a sip like she'd been born to do it. He raised an eyebrow, but offered no quick wit to match her outward forwardness.

"Rough day," he mused, sitting beside her on the bench despite its wetness. "You look like you could use some help."

She let out a dry laugh and helped herself to the man's alcohol, which was outrageously bitter and strong. She didn't pride herself as a drinker, but she never was one to turn it down, especially when everything around her was coming to a crumbling, bittersweet end around her.

"I spent my _whole life_ ," she began, shame washing away with the rain in the gutter, "trying to bring my brother back. And do you know what I got for it?"

She looked up at him, his deep crimson eyes drove into her own like sunbeams. He looked open, like he was ready to hear everything she had to tell him.

She shook her head again, laughing because the entire situation was so _goddam_ hilarious, and maybe she was a _tiny_ bit of a lightweight, and maybe she was a _tiny_ bit tipsy, and maybe this man was a _tiny_ bit attractive – and maybe, just _maybe_ , she should be a _tiny_ bit skeptical of the random guy who hands her alcohol on the street. Just maybe.

"I got – _nothing_. I just wanted-" she cut herself off before spilling any more of her life story to the random slightly attractive rain-drenched stranger. "I just wanted my best friend back. And I didn't get it. And now…well…now I _know_." She stated boldly, finishing off the final drops of the man's beer and handing it back to him curtly.

"What do you know?" He urged her on, voice unwaveringly cal as he watched her degrade like stone in a hail storm.

"I know that I can't trust anybody but myself." She finished hollowly. It was a rule she made herself live by, however depressing the idea may have been. It hadn't led her astray – not until now.

"Maybe," he offered her, sagely, steadying her when she wobbled to the left a bit. "You just haven't met any of the right people yet."

She let out a sarcastic laugh. "If there _are_ people worthy of trust in the world – may god send me one as soon as possible, because I lost faith a _long_ time ago."

The man smiled slowly. She blinked.

"Let me walk you home." He suggested, watching her like she was something to behold – it was strange. She couldn't recall the last time she'd ever been looked at in that light – like she was interesting.

And that's why, in contradiction to everything she'd learned in primary school about avoiding direct contact with mysterious, attractive strangers,, she let herself be escorted home by the man she'd encountered in the rain.

.

.

And maybe, he'd be the one to catch her when she fell.

.

.

The days moved faster with him around her, everyday served as a new opportunity to learn something new about _him –_ his fondness of cooking dessert, his abhorrent talent to steal her necklace right off her neck, and his blatant, annoyingly contradictory trustworthy persona.

She trusted him, and it scared the hell out of her.

"I think I like your voice," he told her one night, his legs crouched up against the fabric of her couch [ _curse his obnoxiously long legs_ ], his overwhelming and sometimes random honesty baffled her in every direction.

"I hate it," she replied, tugging aimlessly at a strand of her sunlight yellow hair. "It's high pitched and childish."

His lips made a straight line, unsatisfied that she didn't agree with him amicably. He leaned forward, hips shifting against hers and he tugged her mercilessly onto his lap, trapping her between his long, muscled arms and pressing his nose to the back of her head.

"Well, I love it." He mumbled. One of his fingers haphazardly traced the hem of her jeans and she had to bite her tongue to keep from responding. He was baiting her – he wanted her steamed and flustered.

"I think you just want to mooch more food off of me," she concluded, batting his curious hand away from her hips.

"Not true~~" He sung innocently. His hand resumed its travels and she had half a mind to let him continue.

"Ban," she said suddenly, arm rising to stop his from moving too far.

"Elaine," he replied, body frozen in anticipation.

"You ruined everything," she told him, a small smile appearing on her pink lips shamelessly. "I had everything planned out, and then you came along."

"Well that's always good to know-"

"I love you, Ban."

He froze, even more so then before. She felt his arm seize up from its hold below her chest and his breath hit the back of her neck in calm, steady sways.

"Elaine," he said, voice straining against his urges to laugh out loud in victory. "I love _you_."

"I knew that already," she told him, and she let herself fall asleep in the crook of his arm because she finally had someone that set her free.

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 **bc i like thinking that elaines world completely fell apart after king left, idk. au i guess and review bc that shit is nice even if u want to flame me (pls flame me i nee p)**


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